Not All Mistakes are Bad
by Nightambre
Summary: Done for the LJ-Community Naruto100's Offspring Challenge. Parents shouldn't be that hard to figure out. A couple of girls, a dog, and a special day.


Notes: Me and my weird ideas. This one was drawn on personal experience, and how my brother used to treat me after he became aware of how we were (or weren't) related. Gripey Angsty. Whee. Oh, yes, sorry for grammarical/spelling errors. Unproofed, more or less. x.

This was meant to be her day. She thought "her day" meant that she could do whatever she wanted. But she thought wrong. It turned out that she was going to be forced to socialize with a bunch of people today, and she didn't want to. All she wanted to do was lay where she was, and watch the sky. She wanted to be alone. Of course, that was already ruined thanks to the smelly old dog that was draped across her stomach. She didn't know why the mutt liked her. She would've thought he'd like her sister more.

They were of the same stock, as it were.

She turned her head when her name was called, and she sighed. Speaking of dogs... Sitting up, she frowned at the dog in her lap. She just wished it would go /away/. But, fortunately, in a way, her wish was answered when she saw hands dip down and pluck the dog up from her lap. She didn't even look up. "Hey, Tsumeko."

"Shikari," Came the answer from above in a sing song voice. "Why're you hiding here, huh? We were wondering if the ground swallowed you up."

Shikari stood up and shoved her hands in her pockets. She figured without mom around, she could slouch the way she wanted to. "Preferable fate."

"Aw, don't say that. Today's special."

"Pft."

"Hey, you seen Dad around? Mom says he went AWOL, too." Tsumeko asked, cradling Akamaru against her.

"You mean my dad?"

Tsumeko was unphased by the correction, as usual. "Sure, whatever."

Shikari's expression soured slightly. She still couldn't get the acidic feel out of her mind whenever her sister called /her/ father "Dad". To her, it just didn't feel right.

Tsumeko /wasn't/ a Nara. She had no business calling him Dad. She was a mistake. Mom even told her so. Of course, mom had also told her that not all mistakes were bad, but, ever since Shikari found out that Tsumeko wasn't really her sister, she wouldn't listen to the topic.

And on more than one occasion, she wished the older girl would just follow Akamaru home to his master and stay there. She belonged there, after all. Of course, it wasn't fair to think that. Tsumeko was the older one of the two, and was the one brought into the family, so she had to do the adjusting. Shikari's rational side agreed with that, and knew it wasn't the girl's fault. But, for some reason, ever since she found out the truth about her parentage, well... She just kept having a hard time accepting the other girl as her sister.

She looked up after getting elbowed in the side and saw Shino coming towards them. He regarded them down his nose for a moment, before he gave a sigh. "Your parents are waiting for you, and I think your mother was talking about making both of you do chores until you were blue in the face if you didn't show up within the next five minutes." He lifted a hand and adjusted his glasses. "I just thought I would warn you. She said that three minutes ago."

Tsumeko watched as he turned away and she shook her head. "He is /so/ weird."

Shikari just sighed, "We should hurry. I hate doing chores, especially the ones mom likes to come up with, and even more so when Dad decides to not be around when she gets creative." She took a step forward, but her elbow was caught. "Eh?"

"In a minute..." Tsumeko began digging in her pocket for something, "I wanted to do this without anyone around." Tsumeko shoved a wrapped box into Shikari's hands, leaving no room for the girl to turn it down. "Look, I know we don't really get along much, and you got issues accepting some, uh, stuff," She smiled here, "But, really, I couldn't have asked for a better sister."

Shikari's brows furrowed and she opened up the box. Within it was a delicate silver bracelet with small sapphire chips, perfectly matched to their shared eye color, placed evenly throughout it. She widened her eyes for a moment, figuring that this had to have taken most of what Tsumeko had saved up over the last year or so from missions. Before she knew it, she was being hugged, which shocked her even more.

"Happy birthday, sis. Told'ja today was special."

Shikari just blinked. She didn't know what she did to deserve such a gift, especially since she was constantly mean to her older sister. She sniffled a bit, lifting a hand to rub at her eyes. "Th--thanks..." Maybe Mom wasn't wrong at all...

Some mistakes weren't all that bad after all.


End file.
